


The Second-Chance Encounter

by Ophelia_Raine



Series: The (Mis)education of Sansa Stark [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Affairs, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Conference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And then Stannis, Cheating, F/M, Getting it on with the ex, Guys my age don't know how to touch me, Hotel Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Older Man/Younger Woman, Quarter-Life Crisis, Sansa is wondering what the hell is wrong with her, Washington D.C.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-14 11:16:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14768528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ophelia_Raine/pseuds/Ophelia_Raine
Summary: A conference. A face from the past. And suddenly, Sansa’s perfect little life just got interesting.About 2-3 years afterThe Au Pair and the Gentleman.





	1. Chapter 1

_The second nail is definitely broken,_ Sansa thinks to herself. There is a tiny break at the corner, and it will only start to tear. Sansa resists the urge to click her tongue in exasperation. _It’s getting cold,_ she reminds herself. Her nails are always brittle in colder seasons. She wonders if she’ll have time to run to the town centre, see if that nail salon can fit her in.

She wraps her legs around him now, pulling him in so he’s wedged deeper inside her. She waits for it, hears the way that Harry grunts as he hits her cervix, feels the way his body trembles as her muscles clench his length lightly. 

“ _God, Sansa…_ ” he moans and her hand, the one resting on his shoulder blade, squeezes him gently.  

She’ll have to set off for the airport no later than four, she thinks. Otherwise, she’s just going to hit peak-hour traffic. Probably no time to get home from the office first, and then double back. She’ll just have to lug her travel bag to work and stay on even though they gave her half the day off. 

_Remember to print out your electronic ticket. Maybe right after this, so you don’t forget._

He's building speed now, his rhythm getting harsher, his strokes quickening. At first, he had been doing that thing where he’d pull out until only his tip remained wrapped around her lips, before he’d slam back inside her — though not so hard that she would wince. No, never.

Harrold is always considerate like that, even when they make love.  

She wraps her arms around his neck now and lets her breath escape from her throat in a whimper. Every hard thrust expels the air from her lungs so she sounds like she’s starting to pant to her crest. Each note exhaled is high, airy, feminine. And then she tops it off with his name, whispered. 

“Harry…”

“I’m coming… darling, I’m coming…” he pants above her and it’s her cue. He loves it when she climaxes right before he does. It’s what makes him such an easy man to want to love. That it matters so much that she should have her pleasure before he does. 

She clenches those legs around him now, engages her core muscles as she imagines her passage narrowing, clamping down. She holds that position for three… four… five counts before she starts to moan long and low.

“That’s it,” he cries, no longer so quiet. His thrusts are erratic now, jagged and shallow. She feels him slide in and out of her. She’s not all that wet—or at least as wet as she could be. But it is enough and it makes him happy. And that should be enough for her. She is not hurting. 

She clenches down now, all the way, screwing her eyes shut and tensing every muscle. She makes a noise between a sob and a _yes_.

“Good girl,” he gasps at her cry and immediately fills her. She feels his buttocks as they spasm, hears him splutter, his ecstasy caught in his throat in the middle of a swallow. Two more thrusts and then he is still.

And she hugs him now. She wraps her arms around his broad back and tries to squeeze him tighter. Maybe if she does that enough, something inside her will correspond. Something inside herself will burst like warm honey.

She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. He loves her. And she has no reason at all to stop loving him.

* * *

He will miss her. He knows this. He believes her when she says she will miss him too. He wants to.

Harry traces the backs of his fingers down her face, brushes a curl of brilliant copper that’s tumbled across her cheeks. She’s breathing softly now, her face partially hidden in his chest. He feels her taking him in. She’s always telling him how much he smells like a freshly bathed baby. It should dent his pride, his masculinity somehow. But if anything, her candour only serves to endear her to him all the more.

“What time does your flight leave tomorrow?” he asks, even though he knows. She will tell him the time as always, so patient. What he’s really asking, of course, is if she’s changed her mind. What her reply will tell him, he knows, is that she hasn’t. Work has paid for this conference, even though they can ill afford to. It’s a huge honour for a new starter. It shows investment, that she is someone on the up already. He’s insanely proud of her, even though he still wishes she chose him instead. He will never ask it of her, though.

“Quarter to seven. What time's yours again?” 

“Eleven, just about. Let’s do dinner together, at the airport.”

She pushes herself up so she can look him in the face. “It’s quite a long wait between your flight and mine.”

“Then I’ll wait.” He smiles at her. _Because I’ll miss you,_ he adds with his eyes. _England will be boring without you._  

And because she knows him quite well by now—after twenty-five, twenty-six months maybe?—she smiles as if she’s read his thoughts and kisses him softly on the lips. “I’d like that.”

He deepens the kiss and before they know it, he has her on her back once more, he’s travelling down the length of her until he reaches her secret place. Except it’s not so secret. He knows how to play with it, how to move her through it. In many ways, it’s less of a mystery than the other parts of her.

What really goes on in her mind, for instance.

She is the only one, he knows. Where all other women are almost predictable in the way they fall and fawn over his chiselled jaw, his height and smooth, toned chest, his easy manner, his cheeky dimpled smiles… she is the only one he senses is always just a little out of his reach. She loves him, he knows. Her actions show it, her faultless consideration of his needs ahead of her own paint that picture plainly. But sometimes he’ll catch her staring out the window. Or reading a book except she doesn’t turn a single page for up to an hour. He wonders then.

She’d been so apologetic about missing the birthday bash. Lady Waynwood's seventy-fifth birthday had been celebrated about ten times over by the string of charities she patronises. But this one is to be the big family do, everyone flying back to the motherland from all over. Harry himself had been one of her other charities, when she had taken it upon herself to assume legal guardianship of him when his parents died suddenly without a will. Anya Waynwood is his first cousin through marriage in name, but in deed she is definitely almost  _Mother_. 

He would have liked Sansa to meet her. For the two greatest women in his life to take the measure of each other. He would have loved to see Lady Anya fall in love with Sansa, just like everyone around her seems to. 

But perhaps it’s just as well that she cannot make this trip. He can ask for the ring without having to sneak around then.  

With that thought safely tucked in his mind, Harrold speeds up now. He feels her fingers as she reaches into his hair, as she whimpers to the ceiling, back arched like a sleek cat. And then she comes, though not violently. There is nothing violent about her; even the way she climaxes is beautiful, he thinks. 

* * *

It's not just Harry, she knows. It’s everything. Sleeping, waking, eating, drinking, commuting. Reading, writing, listening, networking. Sansa glides like the proverbial swan, the perfect portrait of contentment and serenity. She smiles on cue. Laughs on cue. Asks smart questions and opines on cue. 

And underneath it all is a kind of petrifaction.

Sansa feels like she’s standing apart from herself half the time, a stranger looking on dispassionately. Sometimes, she almost feels like an astral traveller. She’s hovering above and looking down at herself, at her pretty smiles and her great work ethic. Even her job, the one she tells herself she loves, speaks more about her fear of failure than anything else. She turns up to work, she gets the promotion to be polite, almost.

She had seen the way her colleagues had looked at Harrold at the airport when they met at the departure gate in the end. The surprise on Jeyne’s face. The contemplative, covetous one on Myranda's. If Harrold had been surprised to learn that Sansa had never mentioned him to her workmates before, he never showed it. He'd kept her close instead, turning the charm on in his usual way until Myranda was practically flirting and Jeyne was tongue-tied by shyness. And yet throughout, subtly marking his weddedness to her—the easy tuck of his arm around her waist, the way he’d dipped his head to kiss her fully and sweetly and deeply when it finally came time.

“Come back to me,” he had murmured, brushing his Roman nose across her ear. Something like guilt had shot through her then. 

The International Human and Civil Rights Symposium is held primarily at the Walter E. Washington Convention Centre in DC this year. More than twelve thousand academics, industry practitioners, authors and publishers, activists, and public servants the world over are expected to arrive and sup at the intellectual buffet boasting just over four-hundred sessions spilling out from the convention centre to spread over twenty hotels across DC all week long. Sansa, Myranda and Jeyne had each chosen their plenary sessions long in advance — the most popular ones are almost fully booked before they even release the program, usually. Each of them has their specialities and therefore naturally gravitate to different topics, different speakers. Jeyne goes wherever Myranda goes, but seems disappointed when Sansa reveals a wholly different program. 

“We’ll hardly see each other,” Jeyne accuses as if the very thought of colleagues being separated at a convention is ludicrous. Sansa is sure to mask her relief in a show of mild disappointment followed closely by a pragmatic shrug.

“We’ll meet up for dinner, probably.” Her room is just across from the both of theirs. Sansa had been sure to put up her hand and offer to pay the extra for a single room, beating Myranda to the punch—much to the latter’s chagrin. But if there’s one thing that Sansa craves desperately, now that Harrold is in the Cotswolds, it’s this: a room, a bed, a bath, alone. 

* * *

Stannis doesn’t do holidays. Conferences, at least, give him some of that reprieve all in the name of knowledge acquisition. Over the years, he attends them less and less but every now and then, he forces himself to go to this one like a child forced to swallow bitter medicine that is good for him. He always starts out at the airport sullen and grouchy about committing himself to a week-long symposium when he can ill afford the time. Inevitably though, he'll leave the hotel at the end of the week feeling more relaxed and rested than he has in years. 

Davos’s plenary had been good and well-received, Stannis thinks now as he eases himself on a seat at _The Lobby Bar_ —a small routine he’s already established in the fifty-something hours since his arrival at the Marriott. A whole day of seminars and workshops, and then he’ll bookend it with a nice cold one _alone_. Later, he’ll do some work while wolfing down a BLT he doesn’t taste. And then it’s to the gym, followed by a shower before more work until he passes out in bed. Davos will have pestered and cajoled him to wander down Dupont Circle and join him and the other two third-years that Davos is currently babying like a mother hen. And Stannis will decline, to save everyone the awkwardness; the third-years would've been too scared shitless to know how to be in his presence, and Stannis would’ve most certainly sat there moodily clutching a longneck and staring at the nearest clock. And Davos would’ve been wisecracking gently from his corner, the only one comfortable in his skin. 

_No, thank you._

Stannis knocks the last of his pale ale back, feels it slide down his throat. It’s only when he sets the glass back down that he sees her. 

That piquant face perched upon a long, slender neck, a pair of startling blue eyes fringed with curling lashes that he knows all too well are natural and unspoiled. Her tiny teeth when she smiles. Except she isn’t smiling now. 

She doesn’t see him, Sansa Stark, and he takes this time to stare at her, his jaw falling open a fraction, his mind taking him back and marrying it with the vision before him. She is older now. It’s not in the skin, or the way she wears her hair, or the fact that she’s dressed in a well-cut suit that looks more expensive than his own. No, she _seems_ older now. It’s in the way she orders her drink, her voice just that little bit harder and surer. It’s her eyes and how they survey the room and take nothing in. She looks far too weary of this world for one so young. 

She looks, perhaps, a little like how he must look to those around him. 

And then she turns and their eyes lock like two pieces of a jigsaw—the tab slipping silently into the blank. _Click._ He watches as her eyes fill with recognition. 

“Stannis,” she says softly and he hears her, of course. Even at the busy _Lobby Bar_.  

Two full seconds and then he allows the smile within to seep through and move his lips. 

“Are you here for work?” “Here for a meeting?” both of them ask together. And then they share a smile that thaws the space between them all the more. 

“I’m here for a conference.“ Stannis gestures to his symposium folder. It is everywhere, of course, seeing how the hotel is now overrun by its participants. 

“So am I,” she replies softly and his mind races now. He’s calculating when she would've graduated. Where she might be working now. How she’d gotten involved in human and civil rights. 

Whether her choice has anything to do with his own chosen profession.  

“Been here since Monday?” 

“Yes.” 

“First time?” 

“Yes,” she replies again. “And you?” 

“I come once in a while,” he admits. He doesn’t tell her that he sometimes comes as a speaker. That they invite him every year to hold a session, that they waive the requirement for him to submit a paper beforehand. He hears those words in his own head and it sounds ridiculous. And so he doesn’t.  

She smiles now, a small tilt of her head so the warm-toned downlight overhead catches more of that coppery mane, so it shines.  

“Stannis Baratheon,” she says now, a small note of wonder in her voice. He wants to ask what she means by that. It sounds a little like a pronouncement. A declaration.  

“There you are!” And then there are two others, flanking her side now. “We’ve been looking everywhere! Didn’t you get our calls?” 

“Sorry,” Sansa murmurs and flicks them an apologetic smile. “It was on silent most of the day. I just got out.” 

“Well, I’m starving,” declares the curvier one. _They’re all so young,_ Stannis realises. They don’t even know that he’s there. It’s almost as if people past a certain age become invisible to them. He can empathise, of course. He hardly notices his own third-years after all. 

He notices _her_ , though. 

Sansa slips down her barstool and when her friends aren’t looking, she slips him a note to pay the bartender for her drink that is yet to arrive. He shakes his head silently, refusing to take her money. _I’ll handle it,_ he wants to say. But she insists, pressing the note into his palm so something within him leaps from the feel of her hand in his. Fleeting. And because she’s running out of time, he takes her proffered note with reluctance and nods soundlessly and she smiles again. This time, it’s nothing like that empty shell of politeness stretched thinly on her face, the one she just flashed her friends earlier. She mouths her thanks and then she is gone. 

He wonders if he’ll see her again. Over four-hundred sessions spread across god-knows how many hotels and she had to walk into his. Stannis is a man of habit. He’ll be at the bar again tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I'd promised myself I'd try and write another Stansa, so here's a start of my second-ever. Rather tame beginning, I know. But they've still got the rest of the week... ;-)


	2. Chapter 2

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/162326344@N04/42695918942/in/dateposted-public/)

In the morning she is back to neutral, shuffling from one conference session to the next. She’s immersing herself in this workshop, in that seminar. Responding to emails, tweeting her insights. Using all the hashtags that they recommend. She is so engaged without being engaged. She is so switched on even though it's dark inside and there isn't anyone at home. 

But she looks for him. She would walk into a great mass of people and a part of her is already searching long before the rest of her thinks to ask. She's scanning each plenary that mentions words like "law", "justice system", and anything that even whiffs at the constitution.  

And when she stops twitching, even for a moment. When she stops tweeting and typing and thumbing through content, her soul flees the present and she is back in snow-capped Zermatt and the glass house that made her vulnerable and strong and forget herself. 

There are vignettes of Zermatt that she keeps. The one she sees today, the one that plays in her mind the most is the one of Stannis as he’s staring down at her. They are in his bed — he on top of her, she curved around him like a partially broken shell. His mouth is stern, his blue eyes so dark they’re almost onyx. He looks so very hard, so very fierce, but he’s in her, _right inside of her,_ and when he comes shortly after, he murmurs her name for the very first time and it’s the fevered whisper of a supplicant in worship as he empties himself. His eyes close then and she feels him truly relax in spirit.   

She opens her eyes and as if she had summoned him from her thoughts alone, he’s walking past her now. She’s with Myranda and Jeyne, he’s with colleagues. His eyes widen a fraction but that is all the acknowledgement she gets. He doesn’t nod. She doesn’t smile. She even looks away. But when they pass each other, his finger brushes her own. 

* * *

They meet again at the _Lobby Bar_ and this time, there is no surprise — only expectation. Stannis had arrived less than ten minutes ago but he's been waiting for two and a half years.

“Hello,” she says and it’s even in the way she says it that he knows she’s changed. The runaway _au pair_ had graduated and the even lovelier creature before him is somewhat familiar and yet even more impenetrable than before. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” And he watches as she orders her own in reply. He tries to put his finger on it and it takes him maybe two, three minutes of small talk about plenaries they attended today before it finally dawns on him. 

They’re equals now. He’s not her boss, or even the brother of her father’s best friend. As far as anyone else is concerned — those milling around them, the bartender, the colleagues and acquaintances who wave hi and bye… as far as anyone around them is concerned, they’re two adults sitting at a bar having a drink. No one cares. There is no social impediment. Even the difference in age melts away in a professional setting such as this.  

He waits for her to finish her drink and before he can form the words, she smooths her hair behind her ear and looks him in the eye. 

“I’m famished,” she admits. “Can I buy you dinner?” 

* * *

She’s texting back one-handed and when she looks up, she apologises for her rudeness before admitting that she’s in the midst of evading her colleagues. 

“They want to have dinner somewhere close and then progress to drinks and dancing after. I really rather not.” She frowns again as another text message comes in and then she’s typing furiously while he watches her, his insides feeling strange until he realises that he’s flattered.  

It’s the first time since arriving that he’s bothered to have dinner out and even though he’s in DC often for work, he really doesn’t know it much at all. It’s mostly room service for him. Or some mid-level fledgling having to guess what he needs and bringing him a cold salad that he eats only because he cannot be bothered to wait any longer. 

“Shall we walk?” And he looks at her shoes straight after he suggests it and worries that he’s being thoughtless. She’s wearing a simple black dress today, the neckline wide and square to reveal a white shirt underneath, collar buttoned right to the top. Her pale beige trench coat looks far too thin but she doesn’t seem to mind the biting cold as the sun sinks into the horizon. Her stockings are sheer and they match her skin tone perfectly, and he suddenly pictures slipping fingers in the waistband and peeling them slowly down those legs that end in a pair of pointed heels that look very smart but much too painful to walk those miles and miles in search of dinner. 

They talk. She’s working for a lobby group that he’s heard about now and then — National Alliance for Human Rights and Development. She tells him she’s only new and still feeling her way around, but she’s already gravitating towards helping women fleeing religious persecution. He tells her nothing much has changed with his job. He lives to fight another day — there’s always a poor bugger in need of a human rights lawyer, so long as this world spins and sins the way it does. He’s named partner now and has been for a while. This is his forced vacation, he admits and grunts self-deprecatingly as she laughs gently. _I remember,_ she says. _You’ve always been passionate._  There’s a tiny pause before she thinks to qualify. _About your job. You’ve always been passionate about work._

He’s careful not to touch her, their hands, their arms a mere moment away but they do not touch as they meander until eventually, they find themselves in Dupont Circle anyway. It’s getting crowded everywhere, but miraculously they score the last two seats by the window of Hanks Oyster Bar — a trendy and, by all appearances, popular restaurant serving ‘urban beach food’, whatever the hell that means. Oysters, popcorn shrimp, calamari are the requisites for the maiden meal there, apparently. And so they tuck in, Stannis keeping one eye on the prices, only too aware that he’d foolishly agreed to let her pay. Sansa is only fresh out of Uni, after all. And non-profit NGOs weren’t getting any richer, from what he knows. And yet she doesn’t seem unduly worried. 

He’s oddly proud to hear she’d made up for lost time at Uni, graduating with double honours in social work and political science. Summer sessions saved her, she tells him. And understanding lecturers who helped her cobble together a punishing timetable so she could make that deadline. He reads between the lines and knows already that she is whip-smart. That even though she had spent a year away, here she is in DC.  

It’s slightly surreal to talk to her about work, but Stannis finds Sansa a thirsty listener and they spend the evening leaning in over the din and the shrimps, their foreheads almost touching as they talk about the current political landscape here and overseas. He belatedly remembers that she’s Ned Stark’s daughter. That she would have travelled with her family on his various postings overseas. And maybe that’s why, he tells himself, that there is such an air about her. A quiet detachment even when she’s fully in the present. Transient.     

They share a taxi back to the Marriott and somehow end up in  _The Dignatory_ with its red brick wall, dark wooden timber floor, and seasoned Hancock chairs. Each element had been handpicked by a designer, no doubt, to evoke that laid-back, 'gentlemen’s pub' vibe. A party of five are just leaving when Stannis and Sansa enter the bar and it feels too much like effortless providence that they should find themselves by a window once more. This time, another couple enters with them and after a short negotiation, the four of them decide to share the seats; the other couple settles into the leather settee facing them, and Sansa and Stannis sit beside each other, sinking into deep red leather armchairs.  

She doesn’t want a drink, which is a small pity for _The Dignatory_ boasts quite the collection of regional bourbon and some pretty serious scotch. And because Stannis is the most relaxed he’s felt in forever, he orders a whiskey, knowing full well he won’t be working tonight. 

It is when he’s most comfortable that she tells him about Harrold. 

He’s the boy she’s been seeing for a little over two years. They had dated long before and it hadn’t worked out. Somehow, after she returned from Zermatt, things changed between them. She gave him a try, she said. And they’d been going out since. 

Stannis asks for pictures, the question sounding false and alien to his own ears as if he’s suddenly playing the part of jovial uncle. He sits and finishes half his glass as she finds one on her phone and Harrold is, of course, everything that Stannis expects him to be. Tall. Blonde. Chiselled. Athletic. Besotted. 

And young. Just starting out, just like she is. 

She puts her phone carefully away. And then she turns to him and says, 

“You never called.” 

Something in him lurches. “You never did either,” he points out. It’s almost reflexive, the defensiveness. Lawyerly. 

She just smiles and he thinks she looks suddenly older. “How’s Shireen?” 

“Better,” he assures her. His daughter turns fourteen at the end of the year and she seems a lot more settled in herself. She’s going to a small private school now. He adds lightly — _no more governesses_. 

Zermatt had changed his daughter too. 

* * *

They sit in silence after that, and it should feel uncomfortable. But it isn’t. The couple opposite on the couch are snuggling into one another, the day’s toll writ plain on their faces. They too are still in their suits, now rumpled by the couch and the day’s activities. Occasionally they murmur to each other with a familiarity that looks honed after years of practice and perfection.

Sansa wonders if the woman fakes her orgasms too.   

She wonders now what they must think of the both of them in return, Stannis sitting quietly beside her, brooding broody thoughts. She, nursing a cup of tea that had long cooled down and now merely tastes bitter.  

Stannis looks and sounds just the same and there’s a distance between them that is to be expected after time apart. After how things ended. And yet there is an element of something. Comfort. Ease. And yes, familiarity. It is both strange and satisfying. 

He finishes his glass and stares at it as if he can will it to refill. He’s still staring at it intently when he asks if she’s staying until the end of the convention tomorrow.  

“I’ll probably stay until the cocktail event after the final speaker,” she tells him now. “But I check out tomorrow morning and then I’ll be flying back after the cocktail. My flight’s at seven.” 

“So you’re not staying on for the gala dinner.” 

“No. It was too expensive. Work didn’t want to have to shell out the extra for all three of us. And I didn’t want to go alone even though they gave me the option of topping up the amount to attend.” 

Stannis nods understandingly. “We have half a table.” 

“Oh?” 

“Someone’s pulled out because of a case and flew back today. I have an extra seat now.” He turns and looks at her. “You can have it, if you like.” 

“You’re asking me to come?” 

“I’m saying there’s a seat available…. Yes, I’m asking if you’d like to come.” 

It isn’t at all what she expects from him and Sansa’s lips part a little as she searches for an answer. She doesn’t know what to think but she watches as his gaze falls to her mouth.  

“Stannis…” she says quietly. “I’m still with Harrold.” 

“I know.” 

“He’s quite serious about me.” 

The look he returns her with. Stannis's silence is articulate and she flushes now but doesn’t answer the question inherent in the arch of his eyebrow. _And how about you? Are you serious about this Harrold?_

_I’m here,_ she wants to say. _What do you think, Stannis?_ She should have gone to the Cotswolds with Harry. Lady W’s birthday, meet the family... it was high time. But Sansa had been desperate to delay the inevitability of it all. Even now, she suspects Harry will get the ring on this trip. She suspects he'll pop the question within days, months of his return.  

How did she learn to read Harry so soon and so well? Is this intimacy?  

“Does this mean you’re saying no?” 

Sansa smiles. “No…” 

And Stannis frowns. “Is that a yes, then?” 

“Yes.” 

* * *

Harrold calls like clockwork, even though it’s half past four in the morning for him.

“Hey babe…” He sounds so sleepy but she hears the happy smile in the husk of his voice and something twinges within her. 

“It’s so early,” she chides him gently. “You really didn’t need to call.” But she thanks him anyway because it’s so sweet, it should hurt more.  

“How was your day? Just get back from dinner?” 

“I did. Met an old family friend by coincidence and we ended up having seafood." 

“Sounds delicious. Was it good?” 

“Very good.” 

“You should take me there sometime. One day. When we travel.” 

“That would be fun.” She pauses, kicking off her heels and climbing into her bed, sinking back into the goose down pillows even as she pulls her laptop to her and turns it on. 

“Last day tomorrow?” 

“Yes… I’m changing my flight,” she explains as she pulls up her browser. “I’m staying on for the gala dinner.” 

“Oh?” Harrold stifles a yawn and he sounds so young when he does that. “They had extra seats after all?” 

“Something like that.” She checks her electronic ticket deftly. Thank goodness it's the one with the flexible returns. Sansa has a grim hunch that she might have missed the window for the free flight change, but the extra fee probably won’t kill her. 

There’s a companionable silence as she changes her flight. She rather suspects that Harry’s taking a snooze. It’s only when she gets her confirmation email about her changes that she hears him stir. 

“Family’s been asking a lot about you. I’ve been talking you up.”

And Sansa chuckles on cue.  

“I’ve missed you, baby,” Harrold is solemn now and he suddenly sounds much more awake. "And I’ve missed Lady W. Tell you what — let’s plan another trip. When you’ve accrued more leave. What do you say?” 

Sansa stares at her screen, at the fact she just sank a couple hundred dollars to go to a fancy dinner she doesn’t even have a dress for. Her heart rate has been going like a rabbit’s ever since she accepted that invitation.  

She smooths her hair behind her ear. “I think that sounds like a wonderful plan,” she hears herself say brightly. “How was your day?” 

* * *

There is a lightness in her step today and Sansa feels magnanimous even when Myranda predictably gets annoyed and Jeyne, disappointed.

“What do you mean you’ve changed your flight!” 

“I’m staying on.” 

“For what!” 

Sansa shrugs and she smiles. “Met some friends. They had an extra seat at the dinner. I thought I’d join them as it’d be fun. It’s Friday anyway. I’ll just fly out tomorrow and see you all on Monday. It’s not like I’m missing work.” 

“Extra seats and you didn’t think to tell us?” Myranda narrows her eyes. “Thanks a lot!” 

“Sorry,” Sansa lowers her eyes and tries to look contrite. “It was just one seat. And it didn’t feel like it was an open invitation to invite others.” 

Myranda shakes her head. “I don’t know how you do it,” she bites out and it’s hard not to notice the almost sour aftertaste of her words. “Things just fall into your lap, don’t they.” 

And from breakfast on, Sansa feels Myranda’s eyes on her. As a compromise, Sansa had agreed to take the same sessions as the both of them on her last day of the conference and she curses her decision now, even as she’s perfectly cordial as always.  

When Stannis and his colleagues enter the room in the session just after lunch, Sansa knows to school her face, training her attention to the front of the room.  

But then they both steal a glance each other’s way and it is a mistake as their eyes meet. One beat. Two. And then three. Three is far too long… And then she glances away again, but it is enough. She feels her heart quickening just as it did last night and it is like coming out of a hibernation after a long, hard winter. 

“That man’s been staring at you on and off for an hour,” Myranda suddenly pipes up in a fierce whisper. 

“Where?” Jeyne raises her head like a giraffe. 

“Ask Sansa,” Myranda suggests, her mouth curling into a smile that isn’t all that friendly. But all Sansa does instead is to shrug and shake her head slightly. Eyes forward. Pen poised.  

Ears burning.  

* * *

“You’ve met someone.”

She is just about to leave the cocktail event and slip up to her room. But Myranda had followed her out of the ballroom and the older girl is grasping Sansa’s wrist firmly now. 

“You’ve met someone. That older man.” 

“Myranda… what are you talking about…” 

“Was he the one who invited you to the dinner tonight?” And Myranda jerks her chin towards Stannis now, whose broad back is stiff and straight like a soldier’s. Almost as if he senses being the object of their present discussion. 

“He’s just a family friend.” 

“So it _is_ him! He the one you blew us off last night for?” 

“Myranda… I see you and Jeyne every day in the office. Stannis is a friend of the family. I haven’t seen him in years. We were just catching up.” And then more defensively, “Harry knows about this. I haven’t done anything wrong.” 

And a myriad of expressions flickers past Myranda’s face at her words. She leans forward and stares up at Sansa. 

“Yet.” 

“Pardon?” 

“You haven’t done anything wrong _yet_. Look, it’s really none of my business. But I just witnessed how your boyfriend saw you off at the airport four days ago. And then this whole trip, you’ve been avoiding us for practically all of it and then I find out that you’re suddenly going to this expensive dinner, and you’ve extended your trip. It’s really none of my business—“ 

“You’re right. It’s really not,” Sansa agrees sharply, her bright blue eyes narrowing in annoyance. “And I don’t like what you’re trying to imply!” 

“All I’m saying is… I know when a guy is interested, alright? And right now, all of this is looking real suss. Like, _real_ suss. You’ve got a dreamboat of a man, Sansa. Don’t be a greedy cunt, that’s all I’m saying.” 

* * *

For months now, Sansa had been wondering if this was what the experts mean when they talk about the Quarter-Life Crisis. Was she to die at ninety-six, then? Was this a kind of depression? Was one supposed to _know_ that one was depressed while in the very throes of it? It had seemed like such precocious self-awareness, really. 

The moment she sees him sitting in the lobby waiting for her, his feet planted firmly on the ground, his posture straight, every muscle tensed… The moment she sees him sitting there, his dinner jacket hugging his frame, his bowtie slightly askew and begging to be straightened… A vapour, a mist, a fog lifts from around her and she stops walking through gelatine. It is the most uncanny thing. 

Stannis is standing up now like a soldier. He’s formal again and so very stiff and she wants to laugh because it oddly delights her.  

She stares up into his eyes and sees that he’s a little older again, a little more worn around the edges, and she likes that. 

He, in turn, seems to have stopped breathing. 

“You are beautiful.” It comes out sounding hard because Stannis says it like it’s a mere matter of fact. The sun is hot. Rain is wet. Sansa Stark takes his very breath away. 

* * *

She is so close but they do not touch.

Sansa’s dress is simple: a royal blue velvet gown with a single-shoulder neckline. It skims her figure, hugging her every line and curve before fishtailing to the floor, cutting a silhouette that is modest, sleek, stately, and sets Stannis on fire.  

He watches as she enters the room and even though he doesn’t touch her, even though she’s not on his arm, it is ostensible that she is his Plus One and he tamps down the pride he feels and yet does not deserve. Stannis senses the room stir as individuals notice her and he doesn’t mind at all that he’s the blank canvas against which the art that is Sansa stands out.  

She is _stunning_ and for the next few hours, at least she is all his to stare at and not touch. But when she turns her swan-like neck to face him, to smile that small secret smile, a rush of memory takes away yet another breath and all he can do is to glance away and steel himself.  

She sits beside him and because they are facing the stage, she pulls her chair to his side so she’s now only a little ways in front of him. They never touch, but at some point in the evening, he finds himself resting his hand on the top of her chair just behind the nape of her neck.  

It takes considerable willpower not to reach out, not to let a finger graze across the soft, smooth skin. Not to wonder if a ripple of goosebumps will greet his touch in return.  

She belongs to another, he knows. And just to be beside her now, to watch the entertainment and hear her laugh and get along with Davos, who himself is rather taken by the girl…  

It is enough. It has to be enough. 

* * *

Davos shoots his oldest friend and business partner a look that the latter determinedly chooses to ignore when Sansa makes her excuses and calls it a night. Stannis follows behind her like a silent shadow and the din of the ballroom eventually fades as they make their way to the elevators. 

“Thank you for the lovely evening,” she’s murmuring now. There’s a queue of people at the landing and already they’ve politely declined their turn, insisting that others take their place. 

This is the natural end of things, Stannis knows. The proper one. He doesn’t even know which floor her room is. They should say their goodbyes now, run through the list of polite sentiments about how _nice,_ how _funny_  it was to run into each other again like this. They should say their goodbyes here, even though there’s a constant stream of Others coming and going and coming and going. The lights are too bright and there is no privacy or space or time or perfectly crafted moment to say all the things he has no damn right to say when a woman says she’s with another.  

They should say their awkward goodbyes, then step into the elevator and alight on their respective floors. 

The elevator reaches their level once more. Seven of them enter this time. Five perfect strangers, Stannis, and the woman he longs to touch one last time. 

* * *

The first two alight on level six and Stannis raises his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, brushing against her hand as he does so.

Another enters on level seven. Two leave on level eight. 

Ample space now. And still they stand side by side, backs pressed against the wall, blank faces forward. He feels a finger curl around his smallest and the featherlight touch sends a tremor down the length of his spine. Stannis clenches his jaw but he does not move away.

Level ten and one departs. And at the very last second, the other passenger dashes out as well. The one from level seven. 

The elevator door closes eventually. Next stop, level thirteen.  

She steps in front of him now, straightens his bow tie before her hands slide up and around his neck and she draws him down, down, down to her mouth. 

Level thirteen. The elevator door dings softly as it opens and waits. It shuts just as his tongue slices into her soft, heated mouth. 

Sansa’s room was on level eight. 

* * *

His room is twice the size of hers, with a study nook that is yet to be cleared of his work debris. Those are the things she notes when she drops her purse on the sideboard and completely misses when he buries his face in her neck and breathes her in like a man drowning.

_He is so familiar and so new,_ she thinks to herself as she slips the tie from his collar, as she works his buttons with trembling hands. _I should feel guilt_ , she tells herself. _I should feel the need to stop._

But she doesn’t and it’s only when she peels off his dress shirt that he catches her wrists and his eyes bore into hers. 

“Harry,” he hisses, as if that’s the only word he can muster. Stannis's breathing is laboured already, his eyes narrowed as if hostile except he crashes his mouth over hers once more, his own admonition rendered moot. She feels the heat of him and moans into his mouth. Her fingers rake into the hair at his collar and it is with considerable effort that he breaks away once more. 

“You’re with someone.” And they stare at each other, the rise and fall of their chests in perfect synchrony.  

And something about that reminder sets her alight. Sansa closes her mouth, her lips thinning into a line as her hands reach behind her now and slip down her back. She finds the zipper and slides it down the heavy fabric slowly. His eyes widen when he hears the sound. 

“I’m not with him now,” she replies in a low voice. 

“That doesn’t mean that we ca—“ 

“No.” Her voice is steel and velvet. She pulls the shoulder strap down and the rest of the dress crumples heavy on the floor like theatre drapes. She had not worn a bra. But she did slip on a pair of thigh-high stockings and she smiles slowly as he stares at them now, the Adam's apple in his throat bobbing tellingly. 

She steps towards him now and he doesn’t, he _cannot_ move.  

“Yes…” she whispers now, the sound of permission. She takes his hand and brings it up to the top of her thigh and watches intently as his eyes widen again. He slips a finger under the thick lace at the top and a rush of air escapes his mouth as he guides the fabric down her leg. 

The second time he does this for its matching companion, he kisses down her length and behind her knee so it buckles with want. 

“Kiss me…” she whispers. Somehow she’s pressed against the wall now, her buttocks supporting her weight, her legs parted, stockings pooled at her ankles. 

“Kiss me…” she insists and she holds her breath as he understands her fully. As his nose grazes the inside of her thigh, as his face drifts in front of her covered sex. As his lips press into her most private place. 

“Harder…” she grits out, pressing her buttocks into the wall when she feels his nose, his mouth, his face press into her there again. When even through the fabric, she feels his tongue start to search her heat. 

She feels his hands, so large, so warm, as they grip her thighs now, holding her still as he starts to work in earnest. The satin is soaked through, his tongue bringing on a raging river between her thighs. The friction, the frustration of that layer of fabric seems only to heighten her arousal and they are both taken aback when the wave hits her suddenly so she’s trembling in his grasp, so she’s pushing against that rough, insistent tongue as she muffles her cry.  

“Sansa…” he says her name and again it sounds almost worshipful. They kiss once more, a searing, rough, hard kiss and she smells herself on him, tastes a little of herself. 

He is meticulous now when he pulls her over to his bed, when he runs down the list of clothes to divest of himself and her. Socks, stockings. Pants and the rest of that royal blue dress that made her queen. Her ruined panty he discards with impatience, the same when he yanks his own briefs down to reveal a hardness that looks almost painful. 

And then he’s bare, the hairs on his chest rough against her back as he pulls her to him, as she cranes her neck so her lips can meet his own. His arm slips under her own now as his large hand cups a breast from behind her. There is a sharp gasp as he enters her next and she remembers now the length and breadth of him. Of how utterly _filled_ with him she could be. 

She’s on her side, her legs closed tight as he starts to move within her, building a rhythm as his hips jerk into the flesh of her derrière. He’s like a man possessed and she is swept along with him now, gritted cries into the still of the room for him to go _faster_. _Harder_. _Oh please, oh please don’t stop_. 

_Make me feel alive_. _Make me feel alive, will you..._

Stannis doesn’t answer but every command, every entreaty only serves to spur him on. He nips into her neck now, sucking and marking and leaving a telltale trail of pleasure laced with that punishing pain she seems to keep begging for. He squeezes her breast now, the span of his hand large enough to grasp even part of the other. And the more he clenches his hand as he pounds into her, the more she cries for _more_. 

She is slick now, even slicker than he ever remembers her being. The realisation alone almost sends him over. Stannis squeezes his eyes shut, desperate for control. Desperate to prolong the pleasure and the privilege. 

Something starts to change within her and he hears her breaths start to deepen and grow ragged. He slows a fraction now, the other arm reaching down the length of her body to press against the pearl she taught him about once upon a winter’s day. One hard deep thrust and she whimpers. Another and then another as she starts to sob and keen. 

This time, when the wave comes in, he does his best to ride it with her until the very end, rubbing her slicked self with relentless determination as she calls his name out hoarsely, as the tears lace her eyes now screwed shut. She forgets to breathe and he stops pushing into her now as she clenches around him, as she writhes within his grip, his arm still crossed over her heart. 

And then it is he who grunts into the shadows, who pulls out just in time as he spends himself on her back. He thinks he hears a shaky laugh.  

Sansa turns into his chest now and kisses over his heart, thanking him quietly for the reinstallation of her _joie de vivre_.  

* * *

“How did we get here?” And he doesn’t answer her, of course. The question hangs in the air as each of their minds start to wander.

It wasn’t just her time with Stannis, Sansa realises now. Chatting to Davos had reaffirmed her suspicions: there is just something about an older man that keeps her on her toes, that puts a spring in her step. She had not been attracted to Davos in that way, but she cannot remember the last time she had this much fun at a networking event either. 

And then, of course, there’s Stannis. 

“I don’t know,” he answers frankly now, stroking down the length of her hair. It had been done up for the night but after their torrid roll in the hay, Stannis had painstakingly taken each and every pin out before combing through her hair slowly with his fingers. 

“What are you going to do now?” he asks and she knows he’s talking about Harry. 

“I won’t tell him about us, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“I’m not worried. Just… disappointed. With myself.” And Sansa raises her eyebrows. His brutal honesty. She’d forgotten about that, about that stubbornness sometimes when he gets it into his head that something is wrong. 

_You bewitch me,_ he had once whispered into the frigid air one morning when he thought she was still asleep. Even then, she hadn’t been certain that he had meant that to be a good thing.  

They are based in completely different states now; she in New York, he still back in Chicago except he’s still in half a dozen countries each month. They compare calendars for a little while, Sansa mentally pencilling the day she takes Harry aside and breaks his heart. The soonest, perhaps, that Stannis can get over her way might be in four months' time. And even then, it all depends... 

And then silence falls over them again, each of them off on a tangent as they bite down on bitter disappointment with brutal pragmatism and a stiff upper lip. 

_So this is goodbye. Again._

He cups her face in his hand and tips her up so his lips brush her own. And then he is kissing her softly, gently, deepening now as he feels her leg twine around his, as her hand reaches over to caress his back, dipping lower to press him against her as she sighs into his mouth. 

_You bewitch me,_ he thinks to himself once more as he misses her already, her single tear lightly salting his kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading. And do drop me a line if you're not too shy — I do so love a chat and a hello. xx
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> **You can also find me on[Tumblr](https://0pheliaraine.tumblr.com/).**


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